A few links.
•My new And column looks at the religious right’s response to Sandy Hook. Surprise! It’s all liberals’ fault for hating God.
•Digby points out that for a champion of freedom, NRA mouthpiece Wayne LaPierre sure is willing to swell the numbers of police and create Big Brotherish databases. LGM observes that LaPierre to the contrary, it doesn’t take an armed man to stop an armed gunman. More links here.
•A pundit concludes that when it comes to saying horrible things about Sandy Hook, Both Sides Do It. FAIR disagrees. And Piers Morgan calling for gun control has led to right-wingers demanding Obama deport him for attacking the Constitution! And Ross Douthat gets confused about who’s making outrageous accusations.
•Slate points out that if guns made us safer, why are police and Homeland Security getting more oppressive as gun ownership swells.
•Yacht owners in Newport are outraged the city expects the owners who rent the most dockspace to contribute the most to a harbor renovation. This Ruthless World notes that these Galtian overlords are still sponging off the government for most of their dockspace, but claim their Christmas yacht display justifies a welfare subsidy. Speaking of Going Galt, Roy Edroso spots a rightblogger whose vision of Galtian withdrawal includes getting a government job, then goofing off.
•A women storeclerk gets raped and robbed. Police conclusion: She made up the rape to cover up her own theft.
•The death of right-wing pundit Robert Bork prompts LGM to mock his standing as a martyr to political correctness. For those too young to remember, Bork was a right-wing Supreme Court nominee who opposed the right to privacy, civil rights legislation and thought the First Amendment should be reserved for purely political speech (however you define that). He got flak for his positions, which outraged the right-wing, much the way Republicans squeal that anyone would suggest they’re waging a war on women.
•A man hits on his employee, then fires her because his wife is upset. The Iowa Supreme Court concludes it’s the employee’s fault for looking good.
•A European court finds the CIA guilty of torturing a German citizen.
•Paul Krugman reminds us that if the people predicting fiscal collapse if we don’t slash the deficit were right, we’d have already collapsed: “the prophets of fiscal disaster, no matter how respectable they may seem, are at this point effectively members of a doomsday cult.” CEPR adds some numbers. FAIR wonders on what parallel Earth Entitlement Reform and Closing Tax Loopholes represent radical political ideas.
•Pope Benedict and Saudi Arabian Muslim clergy worry women are getting uppity.
•The new movie Zero Dark Thirty has generated controversy for its depiction of torture as a necessary evil. I haven’t seen it, but here’s feedback from a couplepeople who have.
•Twelve months of batshit rightblogging.
•Here’s a very oddball evolutionary theory about how men’s sex drives have shaped our fists.